era of golden liberty (1648–1763)), p. 192 Tadeusz Krusiński, a Jesuit missionary, traveled extensively and published in Latin, including a 1733 account of his experience in Persia. From the early 17th century, the culture of Polish Baroque was ideologically based on Sarmatism and Counter-Reformation, which during that century were fused into one powerful current of Catholic national mission. The Polish, Lithuanian and Ruthenian nobilities were thus reduced to one messianic "nation" of common origin, whose calling was the defense of Christianity and freedom in Europe. This uniquely understood role of the "chosen" Polish nation was being promoted by the leading writers of the period, including Wacław Potocki and Wespazjan Kochowski, and was to remain a part of the national mystique for a long time. The practical byproducts of this supposedly civic-minded, self-elevating point of view were parochialism, xenophobia, stagnation and intolerance. The Polish Catholic Church had remained likewise nationalistic and intellectually backward until the 18th century, when the reforms of the Council of Trent were belatedly and gradually implemented. The enormous proliferation of monasteries of several orders had at that time little constructive influence on the nation's spiritual life or level of popular education. The witch trials and executions for example, although not as common as in Germany, had been a continuous practice until the middle of the 18th century. The Polish populace was by and large brought back into the fold of Catholicism during the first half of the 17th century, but anti-Protestant attacks continued. They most often took the form of written Catholic propaganda pamphlets and strict Church censorship of dissenting views. The one clear instance of active persecution undertaken against a religious minority was the expulsion of the Polish Brethren, who during the Swedish Deluge strongly supported King Charles Gustav. The sejm of 1658 sentenced the so-called Arians to banishment, unless they convert to Catholicism. As a result, several hundred families (about five thousand people) left the Commonwealth in 1660, while others, threatened with capital punishment and confiscations, faked conversion, only to subject themselves to further statutory persecution. The Polish Brethren were among the most enlightened segments of the society and their expulsion had strong deleterious effects on the country's intellectual development. Other Protestant denominations remained, at least formally, protected by the rules of the 1573 Warsaw Confederation. Many Silesian Protestants entered the Commonwealth in order to avoid recatholization in the Holy Roman Empire after the Peace